Necessary Insanity
by Bastila
Summary: Short drabble: MWPP are in Paris and have run out of money. Sirius has some fun in a strip club and tries to take Remus down with him. Ignore the bad French and the slight musical anachronism for the sake of humor!


"Nah," Harry protested eagerly, "I want to hear it!"

"I really don't think-"

"You know, Sirius," Remus said thoughtfully, with a gleam in his eye, "I'd almost forgotten about that." He bit his lip, fighting a laugh.

Sirius looked helplessly at Harry. "Harry, just in case you do end up getting off the charges, aren't you looking forward to your fifth year?"

Harry smiled quietly at this blatant attempt to curb the subject, ignored it, and shook his head. For once, his mind was not on the Ministry's hearing and his possible fate- this was far more interesting.

"C'mon," Ron protested. He sat tilted back on his stool, enjoying his after dinner butterbeer, lowering the bottle as he grinned at Sirius.

Fred snorted. "Yeah, Sirius- when did you ever earn money stripping?"

"It's a long and involved story, one that I have no desire to tell," Sirius said, glancing up at the smoky ceiling of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place's kitchen, reddening faintly. "And Lupin did it too; stop kidding yourself, Moony."

The group around the hearth looked at him plaintively. Harry was trying hard not to laugh; Ginny was fixedly avoiding Hermione's gaze: both of them had gone rather pink; Fred and George were sniggering; and Ron looked incredulous. They had just finished dinner, which had been cooked by Lupin as Mrs. Weasley was on duty, and were exchanging stories to pass the time before bed.

Remus cocked an eyebrow amusedly at Sirius, who rolled his eyes at him.

"If you must," he sighed loftily. "And if Molly comes in, you shut up."

Everyone but Hermione cheered. She looked very much as though she didn't know whether to laugh or to shake her head in disbelief, and compromised by stretching back on her elbows on the cool floor, skirting some dungbombs Kreacher had left, and giving a little snicker.

Remus chuckled. He smoothed back his slightly graying brown hair and said, "Well, you see, we were caught in Paris one summer and we had blown all of our money on absinthe during the last week we were supposed to be there-"

"-But we wanted to be able to go to the rest of Europe," Sirius clarified.

"So Sirius here decided to get creative in his pursuit of capital-"

"Creativity is the spice of life-"

"And he went missing, one night," Lupin chortled.

As the twins exchanged smirks, Harry asked tentatively, "This was with my dad, too?"

* * *

Sirius Black was stripping.

Good Merlin, he was stripping.

James Potter was so confused he could have sworn he was still on absinthe, but he, Remus, and Sirius had finished the last bottle they had money for yesterday. And not only was Sirius stripping, he was stripping in a strip bar. James was tempted to walk right back out the door, but he couldn't turn away. It was like watching a Wronski Feint go wrong.

Sirius Black was stripping.

It looked like he had worked down to a pair of black leather underwear already.

With a whip.

On a stage.

Surrounded by women.

Very attractive _French_ women.

Some of them looked at least part Veela. They were tipping him. And James was expecting the women to be the ones stripping- it was what he had shown up for. But no. He got Sirius, and what they were seeing James saw far too often in his dorm in Gryffindor tower. Yet his mouth was still hanging open.

There was a clamor as the door behind him was thrown open. James glanced behind him slightly, still aghast, to meet the bright brown eyes of Remus Lupin. He was windswept, wearing a light black jacket and worn jeans.

Immediately Lupin began to scold James. "We. Have. No. Money. And you. Are in. A strip club." Irritably the young werewolf looked around at the admittedly shady sort of club and opened his mouth again to round on James. "Peter'll come find us soon!"

James shook his head, finding no words to describe his horror, and pointed helplessly to the now violently pelvic thrusting Sirius.

Remus followed his gaze and groaned. Weakly, he suggested, "Well… it's supposedly good money?"

James shrugged.

"I was hoping for girls."

"Obviously," Remus said dryly. Tilting his head slightly to catch the tune that was blaring out of dusty speakers in the club's corners, he stifled a laugh. "Is he stripping to- to 'Lady Marmalide'?"

Sirius chanced to look in their direction and he grinned over the heads of his admirers. "Moony! Padfoot!" he called, continuing to grind while running a hand sexily through his long black hair, "I figured how we were gonna get the money to go to Amsterdam!" The girls swooned.

James cracked his knuckles warningly; Remus nodded faintly.

"Come up here!" he ordered. Both of them automatically backed off towards the narrow doorway, but as they did so, the crowd of women looked eagerly over at them.

"Come on!" Sirius bellowed, finishing with a magnificent flare of the whip and a thrust, as the song finished. The girls were obviously crestfallen that he had finished, but they began to eye James and Remus hopefully as Sirius sauntered confidently up to them, owning his black leather underwear as no one else could.

Over his shoulder, he said debonairly to the flock, "Ceux-ci sont les amis je vous disais de, filles. Ils ont chaud de le et les bêtes sauvages." Cheekily he winked.

James began to look even more entranced, yet fearful, as they all giggled winningly and began batting their eyes at both him and Remus. He had never seen a Hogwarts girl do that, not even Lily at her flirtiest.

"What did you tell them, Sirius?"

Sirius grinned evilly.

Remus was flushed so red he could hardly speak. "He said, 'These are the friends I was telling you about, girls. They're hot and wild beasts," he translated for James's, who didn't know French, benefit. "Sirius, I'm going to hex you."

"They don't understand a jot of English," Sirius said fondly, gesturing at them airily. "Well," he caught himself, "they seemed to know the words to 'Like a Virgin' exceptionally well." His fanclub also seemed to be glancing down past his midriff often enough.

"Sirius," Remus said through his teeth.

"Moony. You're a werewolf, mate," Sirius said. "Use some of that animal instinct, why don't you."

As the conversation went on, the extremely pretty girls were looking between the Marauders' faces curiously, jabbering once and a while in French. "It's not always about pain and biting- well, it could be, depending on the girl- but stop with the angst."

"I'll show you how angsty I am when my curse meets your face."

Sirius ignored Remus when he noticed the girls were starting to lose interest and told them hurriedly, "Attente. Remus est très bon au lit- il est très innovateur avec techniques."

Some of them gasped happily and Remus coughed frantically.

"I am not good in bed! Innovative my ass! And aren't they suspicious that you seem to know?" he forced out. James laughed.

"Remus. It's France. They're Parisian prostitutes. They don't care. They'll probably be asking us for a ménage a trois. Or a ménage a quatre. Which hopefully will consist of three girls and me, but I could settle for either of you."

"You won over French whores?" James spluttered incredulously. He looked around avidly. "Where the hell is the dressing room?"

"Back behind the stage," Sirius said, gesturing coolly. "And yes, I 'won them over.' It wasn't hard, really. It's their club in the first place, but then one of the saw me dancing to the karaoke machine and said she would pay me if I stripped for her-"

"-Because you're that attractive," Remus muttered.

"Seeing our financial situation is a little dodgy, I said yes," Sirius concluded serenely. "Then I promised them that when you and James showed up, you would help me because you were as handsome as I was." He paused and added, "How did you find me, anyway?"

"Standard locator spell," Remus growled.

"Thought so," Sirius said easily. "Look, humor me."

James was already halfway to the dressing room, accompanied by a lithe redhead reminiscent of Lily who was chatting to him happily- not that he understood French.

"No," Remus said firmly.

"I'll buy all of your schoolbooks and... and any other books you want from Flourish and Blotts at the beginning of term," he said enticingly. "Maybe an owl too, as long as you promise not to wolf out and eat it? Remus, I would love to see you in this fluffy teddy number."

"Am I ever getting out of this without prancing around like a lout onstage?"

"Non, non, Moony. This is our chance to make back all that money and then some."

Remus paused a minute, eyed the remaining girls cautiously, and nodded. "This does not go back to Hogwarts. Ever. I don't want my last year there to be precluded by this."

The group of women looked most excited to have him there and smiled beguilingly at him. Reluctantly he followed in the direction James had gone off in, leaving Sirius to tell his audience, "Il est un loup-garou. Il fait le calmer, mais il fait aussi pour sexe stupéfiant."

They thought Sirius was joking about the werewolf, or loup-garou, part, which was fine with Remus. He could hear their sniggers as he disappeared into a shabby but lavishly furnished dressing room.

James was in a corner, pulling on some sort of very tight red vinyl trousers. His new friend had vanished back outside. His shirt was off and flung on a chair.

As he struggled with the trousers, James asked, "What was he saying about you?"

Remus couldn't look him in the eye. "'He's a werewolf. It makes him quiet, but it also makes for amazing sex.' Come on. Learn French just so you can insult me."


End file.
